This volume provides a holistic presentation of the reality of constitutional change in 18 countries (the 15 old EU member states, Canada, Switzerland and the USA). The essays offer analysis on ...formal and informal constitutional amendment bringing forth the overall picture of the parallel paths constitutional change follows, in correlation to what the constitution means and how constitutional law works. To capture the patterns of constitutional change, multi-faceted parameters are explored such as the interrelations between form of government, party system, and constitutional amendment; the interplay between constitutional change and the system of constitutionality review; the role of the people, civil society, and experts in constitutional change; and the influence of international and European law and jurisprudence on constitutional reform and evolution. In the extensive final, comparative chapter, key features of each country's amendment procedures are epitomized and the mechanisms of constitutional change are explained on the basis of introducing five distinct models of constitutional change. The concept of constitutional rigidity is re-approached and broken down to a set of factual and institutional rigidities. The classification of countries within models, in accordance with the way in which operative amending mechanisms connect, leads to a succinct portrayal of different modes of constitutional change engineering.
This book will prove to be an invaluable tool for approaching constitutional revision either for theoretical or for practical purposes and will be of particular interest to students and scholars of constitutional, comparative and public law.
Title IX, a landmark federal statute enacted in 1972 to prohibit sex discrimination in education, has worked its way into American culture as few other laws have. It is an iconic law, the subject of ...web blogs and T-shirt slogans, and is widely credited with opening the doors to the massive numbers of girls and women now participating in competitive sports. Yet few people fully understand the law's requirements, or the extent to which it has succeeded in challenging the gender norms that have circumscribed women's opportunities as athletes and their place in society more generally.In this first legal analysis of Title IX, Deborah L. Brake assesses the statute's successes and failures. While the statute has created tremendous gains for female athletes, not only raising the visibility and cultural acceptance of women in sports, but also creating social bonds for women, positive body images, and leadership roles, the disparities in funding between men's and women's sports have remained remarkably resilient. At the same time, female athletes continue to receive less prestige and support than their male counterparts, which in turn filters into the arena of professional sports. Brake provides a richer understanding and appreciation of what Title IX has accomplished, while taking a critical look at the places where the law has fallen short. A unique contribution to the literature on Title IX, Getting in the Game fully explores the theory, policy choices, successes, and limitations of this historic law.
By engaging deeply with American legal and political history as
well as the increasingly rich material on gender history,
Gendered Citizenship illuminates the ideological contours
of the original ...struggle over the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) from
1920 to 1963. As the first comprehensive, full-length history of
that struggle, this study grapples not only with the battle over
women's constitutional status but also with the more than
forty-year mission to articulate the boundaries of what it means to
be an American citizen. Through an examination of an array of
primary source materials, Gendered Citizenship contends
that the original ERA conflict is best understood as the terrain
that allowed Americans to reconceptualize citizenship to correspond
with women's changing status after the passage of the Nineteenth
Amendment. Finally, Rebecca DeWolf considers the struggle over the
ERA in a new light: focusing not on the familiar theme of why the
ERA failed to gain enactment, but on how the debates transcended
traditional liberal versus conservative disputes in early to
mid-twentieth-century America. The conflict, DeWolf reveals,
ultimately became the defining narrative for the changing nature of
American citizenship in the era.
The study addresses the mediation, through television, of a World Heritage Site: the Temple and Cemetery of Confucius and the Kong Family Mansion in Qufu, China. Previous studies have indicated that ...the exposure of heritage sites through both factual and fictional film and television programmes has resulted in an increase in the number of visitors, along with challenges for the management of these sites. The majority of studies have focused upon 'over-tourism' and the issues generated by the wide exposure of the heritage sites through film, within a framework of neo-liberal production and popular consumption. However, few studies, particularly in a Chinese context, have looked at the implications of representation for the heritage sites themselves, their management and the values and meanings they have for their wider communities. Moreover, there has been little emphasis on the way that World Heritage Sites are communicated through visual media, though there appears to be a common assumption that somehow their UNESCO designated status changes and privileges the ways in which they are represented. In China, despite recent, rapid technological changes, television remains an important medium, both in terms of entertainment and education. This, together with the fact that the World Heritage Site of Qufu, because of its connections with Confucius, has a powerful resonance in Chinese culture, makes it an interesting case to explore in relation to how its meanings are communicated to a wider public in China and beyond. This brings into focus the relationships between media production and heritage and the issues surrounding the ways that heritage sites are portrayed. In this thesis I examine the factual and fictional television programmes that have featured the World Heritage Site of Qufu. This involved de-constructing the visual imagery and the narratives of the programmes to identify their key messages and the selective production choices that they embody; choices that largely lie outside the managers of the site. Understanding the processes and motivations behind these programmes allowed me to understand the disconnection that exists between an 'official', authorised representation of Qufu and the daily realities of its management as a heritage site with links to the local community. Through interviews with key stakeholders engaged with site management, in addition to those engaged in the portrayal of Qufu through the medium of television, I explore how the media is bypassing the meanings of the place as a heritage site, along with the complexities of its conservation, visitor management and community engagement, in favour of an essentially historical narrative focusing mainly on the symbolism of Confucius. My findings highlight a rupture in the understandings between heritage and the media and raise questions regarding how these relationships are, and can be, shaped. In the case of Qufu, as with other World Heritage Sites, the power of the media is recognised but does yet appear to be effectively managed for mutual benefit. My work reveals limited media management on the part of the heritage site, partially as a function of the system of governance that shapes heritage-media relations. Particularly with the advent of social media and the co-production power of locals and visitors to represent heritage/World Heritage Sites, it is important to understand the evolving issue of media management and how this can be practised within different systems of governance.
Amendments were proposed to the International Code of Nomenclature of Prokaryotes (ICNP) in January Arahal et al. (2024) Int. J Syst. Evol. Microbiol. 74: 006188 that would cause major changes in the ...treatment of Candidatus names. The amendments introduce Section 10 to name taxa whose names cannot be validly published under the ICNP because of the absence of type strains. This section creates a parallel ‘pro-nomenclature’ and formalizes alternative material which could serve as nomenclatural types. When conspecific isolates of taxa with Candidatus names are deposited in culture collections as type strains, the names can be validly published, and it is required that the same Candidatus name be used. While the amendments are promoted to provide stable names and rules of nomenclature for uncultivated taxa, the system is deeply flawed. It removes the permanent association between names and types, which will make the meaning of names imprecise and ambiguous. It creates ‘pro-nomenclature’, which is confusing and unnecessary. Since many taxa which cannot be validly named under the ICNP can already be named under the SeqCode, it duplicates and creates overlap with an established nomenclatural system without providing tangible benefits. As the SeqCode recognizes names formed under the ICNP, the ICNP should recognize names formed under the SeqCode as they have done for the Cyanobacteria named under the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi and plants (ICN). For these reasons, we urge the members of the International Committee of Systematics of Prokaryotes (ICSP) to reject these amendments.
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